38 min
Episode #50 Alan Patricof, founder of Greycroft, Apax & Primetime Partners and Abby Levy on Fireside with a VC Fireside with a VC
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- Entrepreneurship
Episode #50 Alan Patricof, godfather of the VC and PE industries, he’s 87 years old now, and founded legendary VC firm Greycroft and seminal PE firm Apax. Alan founded VC fund Patricof Company Ventures with a $2.5m fund in 1969.
· Greycroft has over $2bn of AUM with a reputation trying to keep things from getting too big and follow the path of Apax which has AUM of over $60bn. Their last fund I believe closed in January of 2021 at it’s hard cap of $11bn.
· Alan rather than just add more zeros to Apax, which I think stands for Alan’s initials Alan Patricof Associates Cross-Border, Alan moved on from Apax to found Greycroft. Proving his passion for investing early Greycroft raised its first fund (Greycroft I) with $75 million. Some of Alan’s investments include Steve Job’s Apple Computer, AOL, Xerox, New York Magazine, HuffPost, Audible, Axios, Venmo, Goop, Crafy which we invested in before Greycroft and alongside Greycroft a few weeks ago, Office Depot, and many others.
· Now Alan has teamed up with Abby Miller Levy to launch a new VC fund Primetime Partners focused on funding early stage companies that can transform the quality of living for older adults. At 87 Alan may have some insight and opinions there.
· Alan has also written a book I purchased on pre-order No Red Lights: Reflections on Life, 50 Years in Venture Capital, and Never Driving Alone.
· Abby is a Princeton and Harvard graduate, began her career at McKinsey, more recently was the Founding President alongside CEO Arianna Huffington at Thrive Global, a behavior change technology company focused on employee productivity and wellness and worked in new ventures at SoulCycle.
· Discussing how VC funds have become too large in size resulting in over funding companies and failing to make venture returns.
· Discussing what’s changed in 50 years? More people want to start their own business now compared to far fewer 50 years ago.
· Deep dive on Primetime Partners strategy with a focus on healthcare IT and fintech and the growing elderly market, which control two thirds of the world’s wealth. Primetime also backs founders that start companies over the age of 50.
· Talking about current strategy at Greycroft seeking to invest in companies that can be valued at over $10bn.
· Primetime in contrast is seeking to invest smaller checks, out of a smaller fund and more realistic exit valuations.
· Exit return targets for Primetime compared to Greycroft and reaching 3x returns fund-wide.
Hello@primetimepartners.com
Video: https://youtu.be/T7DA1__xQCs.
https://www.amazon.com/No-Red-Lights-Reflections-Venture/dp/1637582935
Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.
Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund. Andrew@7bc.vc
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/firesidevc/message
Episode #50 Alan Patricof, godfather of the VC and PE industries, he’s 87 years old now, and founded legendary VC firm Greycroft and seminal PE firm Apax. Alan founded VC fund Patricof Company Ventures with a $2.5m fund in 1969.
· Greycroft has over $2bn of AUM with a reputation trying to keep things from getting too big and follow the path of Apax which has AUM of over $60bn. Their last fund I believe closed in January of 2021 at it’s hard cap of $11bn.
· Alan rather than just add more zeros to Apax, which I think stands for Alan’s initials Alan Patricof Associates Cross-Border, Alan moved on from Apax to found Greycroft. Proving his passion for investing early Greycroft raised its first fund (Greycroft I) with $75 million. Some of Alan’s investments include Steve Job’s Apple Computer, AOL, Xerox, New York Magazine, HuffPost, Audible, Axios, Venmo, Goop, Crafy which we invested in before Greycroft and alongside Greycroft a few weeks ago, Office Depot, and many others.
· Now Alan has teamed up with Abby Miller Levy to launch a new VC fund Primetime Partners focused on funding early stage companies that can transform the quality of living for older adults. At 87 Alan may have some insight and opinions there.
· Alan has also written a book I purchased on pre-order No Red Lights: Reflections on Life, 50 Years in Venture Capital, and Never Driving Alone.
· Abby is a Princeton and Harvard graduate, began her career at McKinsey, more recently was the Founding President alongside CEO Arianna Huffington at Thrive Global, a behavior change technology company focused on employee productivity and wellness and worked in new ventures at SoulCycle.
· Discussing how VC funds have become too large in size resulting in over funding companies and failing to make venture returns.
· Discussing what’s changed in 50 years? More people want to start their own business now compared to far fewer 50 years ago.
· Deep dive on Primetime Partners strategy with a focus on healthcare IT and fintech and the growing elderly market, which control two thirds of the world’s wealth. Primetime also backs founders that start companies over the age of 50.
· Talking about current strategy at Greycroft seeking to invest in companies that can be valued at over $10bn.
· Primetime in contrast is seeking to invest smaller checks, out of a smaller fund and more realistic exit valuations.
· Exit return targets for Primetime compared to Greycroft and reaching 3x returns fund-wide.
Hello@primetimepartners.com
Video: https://youtu.be/T7DA1__xQCs.
https://www.amazon.com/No-Red-Lights-Reflections-Venture/dp/1637582935
Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.
Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund. Andrew@7bc.vc
---
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/firesidevc/message
38 min